


Winter Turns to Spring

by hester_latterly



Category: Beauty and the Beast (2017), Beauty and the Beast - All Media Types
Genre: Does it count as character death if he doesn't stay dead?, F/M, Happy Ending, Introspection, Light Angst, obviously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-18 15:06:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10619457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hester_latterly/pseuds/hester_latterly
Summary: A Beast dies.A Prince is reborn.But what happened in between?





	1. Chapter 1

At first there was only white light, a formless void in which he found himself drifting, utterly untethered from space and time. He had come back to himself with a jolt, a sudden rush of indefinable awareness and sensation causing his blue eyes to shoot open and the air to rush out of his chest in a panicked gasp. There was no way to know how long he had been like that, drifting unaware in a sea of nothingness, but now his mind, quick and clever, knew immediately what must have happened: he had died. Yes, that was it exactly. He was dead, and this white light, this _emptiness_ , was what came after. He shook his head wryly. It was a fitting punishment, really, for a man like him: condemnation for all eternity to an afterlife as literally empty as his natural life had been figuratively so.

He had spent so many years leading a life of such wretched excess, and all of it had been a lie. He had painted and powdered, clad himself in velvet and draped himself in jewels, all so that no one would see the real face beneath, see that he was still too much the same little boy he had always been, slender and shy, with his mother’s fair hair, his mother’s blue eyes. He had thrown parties and balls that were legendary for their hedonism, veritable whirling dervishes of light and color, all so that he could hide behind the music and the dancing, could flit from partner to partner like a hummingbird, never coming to rest. For in resting there was thinking, and in thinking, there was pain.

And he had filled his bed with all comers, with courtesans, and merry widows, and opera singers, and actresses, sometimes more than one at a time. He had sought pleasure, and he had found it, and while he had not done any of them harm, had never stolen a maiden’s innocence or taken a woman against her will, neither had he ever looked at any of them as anything more than a way to warm his bed on all those long, lonely nights. They had been as much a source of decoration for his chambers as had the paintings on the walls or the elaborate candelabra that filled the space with dazzling light. He had not sought, and they had not provided, anything more than that. They had not teased him, provoked him, challenged him, had not asked him about his favorite books, or sat with him in companionable silence, each lost in their own story. They had not caused him to analyze every look, even the merest glance, for meaning, or made his heart feel as if it would beat out of his chest any time one of them placed a hand on his arm. In short, they had not been—

_Belle_! The thought of her now sent a sharp ache through his chest so painful that he felt as if it would tear him apart. He could still see her standing on the rooftop, a bright speck of pure white amidst the blackness of the night, could remember the wave of pure joy that had broken across him when he had realized she had come back. But _why_ had she come back? He supposed he would never know now. He pictured her face as he had last seen it, before everything had faded to black and he had woken up here (wherever _here_ was). Her brown eyes had been full of tears, genuine emotion written across her face. But what emotion, he wondered. Sadness, yes, that much had been evident, but also fear, he decided, and despair, and anguish, and—dare he think it?—heartbreak. Would it have been enough to break the curse? He didn’t know, and it hardly mattered now. Even were he not dead, the last petal had surely fallen by now.

He wondered what she was doing at that exact moment. Trapped in this place, cut off from everything, he had no way of knowing how much time had passed on earth. It could have been seconds, minutes, hours; there was simply no way to tell. If the last petal had fallen, then there truly was no hope, not even anyone to comfort her as she sat with his body on the floor of the West Wing tower. Somewhere in that other world, was she still holding onto his paw, clutching it in her tiny, delicate hands as she felt the life and warmth drain out of it? She would, he felt certain, stay like that until all the warmth was gone and it— _he_ —had grown as cold as the stone floor on which he lay.

And then what? Would someone come to help her, one of the villagers, perhaps? It wasn’t likely. An image sprang to mind, as clear as if it were happening right in front of him, of Belle stumbling through his ruined castle, searching for someone, anyone, to help her bear her terrible burden. He supposed that in the end, it would have to be her father, and perhaps that priest she sometimes spoke of, who would come to her aid. They would have to bury him, that much was plain. But where? Beasts didn’t get a spot in the family crypt. Somewhere on his estate, perhaps, in the gardens where he and Belle had walked, where she had read him poetry. Yes, he would like that, to be surrounded by the beauty she had helped him to see.

But after the burial would come the rest of her life, stretching out before her, vast and empty. Would she mourn him? Or would she shut her mind to the reality of all that had happened since she first walked in the front door of the castle, so that after a while, it would seem like nothing more than a half-remembered dream, like glimpses of fragments of something more than the village life she had always known? He supposed she would one day marry, not Gaston, but perhaps someone else from her village, or someone her father would meet on one of his trips to the market town. And it was what he wished for her, truly it was. He had no desire for her to be alone, suffering as he had suffered for all those years before he had met her. He wanted her to be happy, to live the life he would now never have the chance to give her. And yet… He thought of Belle in another man’s arms, Belle tilting her face up to another man with a satisfied smile as she closed the book she had been reading from, Belle in another man’s bed, Belle with another man’s child, and he could not stop an agonized cry from escaping his throat.

It was at this exact moment that the Beast realized that he hadn’t just been drifting through the sea of nothingness; he had actually been drifting _toward_ something. The light was no longer purely white, but was now tinged with a gold that seemed to hang in the air like a mist, and he realized with a start that there was now solid ground beneath his feet. He stood, focusing on the way the air seemed to grow hazier as it met the horizon, and though he couldn’t see it through the intense golden light, somehow he knew that there was something there, waiting, on the other side, just past his line of sight. _The gates of heaven_ , said a voice in the back of his mind, and though he didn’t know where that voice had come from, he knew that it was right, and a bolt of fear lanced through him.

As he stood there, waiting for the judgment he was certain was imminent, he gradually became aware of a figure moving toward him through the mist. An angel? But no, it was walking toward him as any human would, not hovering on wings. As the figure drew nearer, he saw that it was a woman, small, but moving with a dignified, regal bearing that immediately marked her as aristocratic. She came closer, and when she had emerged from the golden light and he could see her clearly, the shock of it literally brought him to his knees. For he found himself looking at a face that, though he had not seen it for twenty years or more, was as familiar to him as the clear blue eyes he saw every time he looked in a mirror. “Maman?” he finally managed to say.

His mother was standing right in front of him now, and from his vantage point on his knees, he was able to look directly up into her face. She looked just as he remembered her, her heart-shaped face framed by soft honey-blonde curls, her sky-blue eyes gentle and warm as they looked down at him, and he was startled to realize that they were more or less the same age now. The years that had marked him had left her unscathed. But of course they had. Why wouldn’t they? There was no time in this place. “Oh, my son,” she said, her hand coming up to cup the side of his face. “How I’ve missed you.” There was only one other person, in this or any world, who was able to touch him like that, tender and unafraid, and the realization of all that he had lost—all that he would never have—hit him anew, a crushing weight against his chest.

He was suddenly reminded, somewhat absurdly, of his boyhood, of those happy, easy days when his mother had still been alive, when he had been able to run to her for comfort from all the world’s ills. Of course, the problems had been so much simpler then: a skinned knee from falling while climbing trees in the orchard, a nursery maid who sent him to bed without a glass of warm milk. He could never have imagined anything like this, not even in his nightmares. “Oh, Maman,” he murmured sadly, relaxing into the gentle touch of her hand, a little boy lost once again. “I’ve made such a dreadful mess of everything.”

His mother’s expression was a curious mix of emotions: pity, sorrow, and something else that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. It could have been relief, or even something akin to contentment. Everything about her radiated peace and calm, and it both comforted and distressed him in equal measure. He felt confused, as if she knew something he clearly didn’t. “My dear, sweet boy,” she said softly, fingers tracing feather-light over the fur of his cheek. “No, no, no.” Her smile grew wistful. “No,” she said again. “I think this time you’ve finally made everything right.”

He pushed himself to his feet at that, a rush of anger burning through him despite himself. “How can you say that? Look at me, look at where I am!”

She didn’t answer him, at least, not directly. Instead, she turned so she was facing away from him, looking past the horizon toward whatever it was that lay beyond the golden light. When she spoke, her voice was as matter of fact as if they had been discussing the weather, or the price of turnips, or any other one of a thousand little minutiae. “Her name suits her, don’t you think?”

“What?” he said, his anger dissipating into genuine confusion.

“Her name,” she said again, patiently, as if he were a little child. “There’s a refreshing simplicity to it. There is value, I think, in calling things what they are.”

Ah, now he understood. A smile ghosted across his features in what seemed to be his automatic reaction to even the merest suggestion of her. “A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.”

She turned to look at him then, and the smile on her face was broad and genuine. “You love her.” It was more statement than question.

He couldn’t dissemble. Not here, not with her. “I love her.” It was the first time he had spoken the words out loud to anyone, and he felt the truth of them in his bones. “More than I ever thought I could,” he added softly.

His mother came closer again and took his large paws in her own small hands, giving them a gentle squeeze. “I’m so glad. It was what I wanted most for you, and I thought—” She broke off, her voice choked, then swallowed and tried again. “I thought it might never happen.” Her smile grew sad. “I’m so sorry—sorrier than you’ll ever know—for leaving you. For leaving you with _him_ , most of all. I knew what he was capable of, and—well, I tried to hold on for as long as I could. I’m sorry it wasn’t longer.”

He thought of his mother in her sickbed, propped up against a mass of pillows, so pale that she would have blended into the linens if it hadn’t been for her hair. He thought of the horrible coughing sound she made, of the maids who carried away the bloodstained handkerchiefs and pillowcases and nightgowns, holding them close to their chests where they thought he wouldn’t see. He thought of a long string of dinners eaten sitting at the other end of the long dining room table from his father, dinners eaten in complete silence except when the wine flowed too freely and his father would grow maudlin and angry in turns. He thought of the closest his father had ever come to exhibiting something akin to paternal affection: the visit to a Parisian whorehouse that had been his seventeenth birthday gift. He thought of the woman who had been selected for him, whose name he no longer recalled, of the way her kohl-rimmed eyes had smoldered as she had taken his hand and led him to bed. He thought of all this, and leaned down and kissed his mother gently on the forehead. “It’s alright, Maman. We all make our own choices in the end.”

“I am so happy she found you.”

He sighed. “But she came too late, Maman. Or rather, I realized too late what it all meant.”

The look she gave him was searching, appraising, as if she were trying to come to some sort of conclusion about this man her boy prince had become. “If you could see her again, if you had all the time in the world with her, what would you do?”

The words were out of his mouth before he had time to think about them. “Love her, I suppose. Never leave her side again. Show her the world. Give her a home.”

She was a little bit tearful now, and he realized with a start that so was he. “There, you see?” she said a little shakily through joyous tears. “You haven’t realized anything too late at all.”

As if on cue, a breeze began to rise up, causing the golden mist to swirl and shimmer around them. “I don’t understand,” he told her. “How can any of it not be too late?”

His mother reached up and took his face in both of her hands. “I love you, my darling boy, and I’m so glad I got to see you again. I’m so proud of the man you’ve become. But I’m afraid now it is time for you to go.”

Panic welled up within him. “Go? Go where?” After all this, to still be consigned to hell?

She pressed herself up onto her tiptoes, straining to give herself the necessary height, and kissed him on the cheek, once, twice, just as she had done when he was a little boy. “Don’t be afraid; I’ll see you again. But it won’t be for many years. You have a life to live, after all.” Stepping back, she gave him a gentle push, and there was only time for him to wonder at how the sensation of his mother’s lips against his face felt different than had that of her hand only a few moments earlier, almost as if—but no, it couldn’t be, it was all just an illusion—before he was drifting again, and then falling, and the white abyss opened up to swallow him whole.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know I said two chapters, but it's going to be three: One for our Beast-Prince, one for Belle, and one for the two of them together.
> 
> Thanks to all for reading, commenting, and leaving kudos. Enjoy Part Two!

“At least I got to see you…one last time.” The words were spoken so quietly that Belle was not completely certain at first that she had heard them correctly. She listened to his labored breathing, in and out, in and out, and felt the icy cold fist of true fear close around her heart. In and out, in and out. Then he let out all of his breath in one long rush…and didn’t draw another one back in. And Belle watched as, to her everlasting horror, his great head lolled back and all of the light faded out of his crystal blue eyes, leaving them fixed in an empty, unseeing stare.

“No!” she choked out, and the icy fist clenched tighter. She squeezed the paw she had been clutching, hoping to feel its answering pressure, but there was nothing, and its grip on her hand grew slack. Her eyes and throat were full of tears. “Please no,” she added, bringing her hands to his shoulders. She wanted to shake him, hard, as if he were only sound asleep and she could rouse him if she just expended enough effort, but the small part of her brain that was still thinking rationally told her that it would be futile. He _wasn’t_ only sleeping—he was dead, and gone to somewhere beyond her reach. “Come back!” she begged him, and the first tears began to fall.

For perhaps the first time in her life, Belle truly had no idea what to do. All those stories she had read, and not one of them had prepared her for this, for the hollow ache that was settling in her chest, or for the way her vision seemed to have gone dim through her veil of tears, as if some of the light and color had bled out of the world. She felt as if her life were a book, and she had turned to the next page, only to find that all of the words had been blotted out, the whole thing turned into a mass of solid black. Every second that passed, every time her heart beat and his did not, felt like an eternity. What was she going to do? How was she ever going to face the rest of her life, when she couldn’t even face the next five seconds, when it felt like she was dead too?

Her breath was coming in great shuddering sobs now, until it felt as if she might choke on the very air that was keeping her alive, tethering her to this place she no longer wanted to be, not anymore, not if he wasn’t there with her. Despite the inauspicious circumstances of their first meeting, his presence had long since become a balm to her soul. In his company, she had found a kind of perfect understanding, a true communion of minds, that she had not known existed outside of books. And now she had lost it, just as she was finally realizing just how much—how very, _very_ much—it meant to her. Such a precious, irreplaceable thing, and it was just _gone_. She could feel the weight of such terrible knowledge pressing down on her from all sides, suffocating her until she felt she would collapse from it.

Had it really only been that evening that they had been happy and dancing? It already felt like a lifetime ago. Her memories came back to her in fragments: seeing him for the first time at the top of the stairs and feeling a curious shiver of anticipation chase over her body; the way their tentative first steps had melted into something altogether more fluid and assured, as if their bodies knew something their minds did not; the pure joy of being lifted in his strong arms, quite as if she weighed nothing, and being spun about beneath the glittering chandeliers, lost in a world of light so dazzling it almost hadn’t seemed real. But most of all, she remembered the moment just before he had lifted her, when, cradling her head with such exquisite tenderness, he had dipped her backward, bringing their faces close together. For a moment, time had seemed to stand still, and her heartbeat had caught in her throat as she had felt he was on the verge of—what, exactly? What had he been about to do? It was another question she would never learn the answer to now.

He had asked her if she thought she could be happy to live her life with him at the castle, if she thought she could ever come to care for him. Her answer had been evasive, not because she didn’t care, but because she had been afraid she cared too much. She hadn’t known what to call the warmth that burst in her chest every time she looked at him, the way her entire body seemed to come alive when he entered the room, or the sense of absolutely perfect _rightness_ that had come over her as they danced, as if they had been made to move together. Or maybe she had known, and had just been too afraid to put a name to it, to make it real when the entire situation had seemed so fraught and impossible. But now, kneeling over his spent and ruined body, feeling the cold and damp of the stone floor seeping through the thin cotton of her petticoats, she realized that there was no point in prevaricating any longer. She no longer had the energy or desire to evade or deny. And once she made that final surrender of the mind, the truth shot through her with all the stunning swiftness of one of Gaston’s cursed bullets.

She loved him. No, more than that: she was in love with him. She was truly, deeply, utterly hopelessly in love with him. Oh, how could she not have seen it? How could she not have known? The awareness of it now colored everything. It was all the reason she had come back, and all the reason she wanted to stay. He was the other half of her, the person who understood her best in the world, and her heart split in two all over again at the knowledge that now she would never be able to tell him so. She had been so stupid, a blind fool. Why had she not told him when he had asked? “Better three hours too soon than a minute too late,” Shakespeare had written. Why had she not heeded it?

She pushed herself up from where she had collapsed against his chest and looked down into his face, cradling it between her hands. He was so still, so unbearably still. “Come back!” she begged him tearfully. _Please, please, you have to come back. There’s so much I need to tell you. I finally understand; I finally know my own heart._ “Please don’t leave me.” _Not when I’ve finally found you_. And then, because she couldn’t seem to stop the words from spilling out of her: “I love you.” _I love you, I love you, I love you_.

Belle didn’t know what she had expected to happen, but what _did_ happen was precisely nothing. Because of course. This wasn’t one of her stories. There were no fairy godmothers or intervening gods, no eleventh hour reprieves or convenient plot resolutions. There was only the hard stone floor, and the bitter sting of chill winter air, and vacant blue eyes, and the horrible, unrelenting silence. Leaning forward, she pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. His fur was soft beneath her lips, and still warm. She wept bitterly.

At first, she was so enveloped in her grief that she failed to notice the sound of glass shattering behind her. Gradually, however, enough awareness penetrated her fog of sorrow for her to notice that the chill had gone out of the air. In fact, the air seemed to be practically vibrating with energy. She could feel it humming all around her. She opened her eyes, and what she saw caused her to start and scramble to her feet in alarm.

A shimmering golden haze, swirled with rose petals, of all things, seemed to fill the air. Belle watched, completely transfixed, as it coalesced into a golden cloud around the Beast, lifting his body into the air, high above her head. Magic seemed to ripple over him, shooting down every limb, and everywhere it touched, fur and claws vanished, replaced by what appeared to be very human features. Higher he rose, and higher still, as all the trappings of his beastly form fell away and he was reborn in flashes of light. A curious feeling began to build in the pit of Belle’s stomach, something similar to hope and a little like joy. Her breath was coming faster now, her entire body shaking slightly with a kind of almost giddy nervousness.

Then, just as suddenly as it had lifted him, the golden cloud began to lower him down, gently, little by little, until he was standing solidly on his own two feet. The shimmering haze dissipated, and Belle found she was looking not at a beast at all, but at the back of a tall young man who seemed to be every bit as human as she.


	3. Chapter 3

This time when he came back to himself, it was gentle, no sudden, gasping shock, but a gradual awakening, as if from a long and dreamless sleep. He was neither drifting nor floating now, but standing, the toes of his bare feet curling against something wonderfully solid. _Wait_. Toes? Feet? He opened his eyes and looked down. The closeness of the ground was startling. But even more than that, it was the sight of his own body that caused his heart to turn over in his chest and his blood to pound in his ears, for where he had expected to see fearsome sharp-clawed paws, he instead saw only a pair of perfectly ordinary human feet. He wiggled his toes experimentally. The toes on the floor wiggled back at him. Yes, definitely his, then. The thumping of his heartbeat was almost painful.

His mind was racing, but his body felt as if it were moving in a trance, slow and dreamlike, as he took stock of himself. He held up his hands, more than half expecting to find them still a pair of misshapen paws, but instead, he was greeted by a man’s hands, a _prince’s_ hands, slender yet deceptively strong, with long, elegant fingers. He turned them this way and that, inspecting them in the golden light that seemed to linger in the air. They were his own hands, they really were, down to the thin white line of an old, faded scar that slanted down the side of one finger, the consequence of a childhood accident with a penknife. He ran his hands over his torso, patting gingerly, but there was no thick fur beneath the simple linen shirt, only his own leanly muscled form. His chest rose and fell in easy breaths. Up and down, up and down. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the familiar snow-covered ruins of the West Wing terrace. Time seemed to stand still, suspended like an insect in amber, as he put together what it all meant. He had seemingly been returned to his castle, alive and intact. And not only that, but he had been returned restored to his human body. The Enchantress’s words from the night she had cursed him—the night everything had changed—ran through his head suddenly, a threat and a promise all at once. “You must learn to love another, and earn their love in return.” _Earn their love in return!_

He spun about quickly, his face full of all the wonder and amazement he felt, his eyes frantically searching for Belle. She was standing a few feet away from him, watching his every move intently. He could see where tears had traced paths down the length of her cheeks, but her wide brown eyes were, as always, curious and unafraid. Because that was who she was, this woman that he loved: as brave as she was beautiful. He wanted desperately to go to her. It would be the work of but a few steps to close the distance between them and take her in his arms. But no sooner had the thought entered his head then he knew it wouldn’t do. So much of what had transpired had not been Belle’s choice, not really. It had been he who had forced her to stay with him, he who had sent her away. And though she had come back to him now, a fact so wonderful and precious that it almost didn’t seem real, there was still that final distance to be crossed. He would not—could not—cross it for her. The final decision must be hers, and hers alone.

Belle’s first thought upon seeing his face was that he was beautiful. Oh, she supposed she should say handsome, and in truth, he was that, but her first impression, almost overwhelming in its strength, was one of pure male beauty. He could almost have been an angel, with his long, high-cheek boned face and loose tangles of hair like burnished gold, except that no angel, she was sure, had ever had such a wide, sensuously curving mouth. Not an angel, then, but a man. And yet, something more than just a man, for she felt certain that here, as improbable as it seemed, was her dearest friend, her dearest love, her Beast.

She watched his expression change as she approached him, watched as his gaze, gentle and unsure, slid up to meet hers, and his mouth tipped into a crooked, almost shy, half-smile. He looked so boyish and uncertain that the desire to touch him, to reassure him, was almost a physical compulsion. She reached out a hand and pressed her palm against his cheek, brushing her fingers back to curl into the hair at the nape of his neck. His hair was like heavy silk beneath her fingertips, and it was then, in spite of everything, that her heart misgave her. Just a little, but it did. Intellectually, she knew it was him, of course. It had to be—he had transformed right in front of her, after all. But still, there was so much that was unfamiliar in the man that stood in front of her now, looking down at her as if she were a miracle, the most wondrous thing he had ever seen. She knew how to love the Beast; she wasn’t so sure she knew how to love this handsome stranger.

Fingers still tangled in his hair, she let her eyes roam over his face, searching for something that she knew, something familiar that would ground her. He was looking at her almost expectantly, and she realized that he was waiting for her to speak first. The only problem was that she wasn’t sure exactly what to say. _How do I know it’s really you? No, impossible._ Then she saw his eyes. No, not just saw them, really looked at them. They were so blue, like the cloudless summer sky she had not seen in so long, or a cool, refreshing lake on a hot afternoon. And more than that, they were familiar. She knew those eyes. She had seen them narrowed at her in anger, and she had seen them bright and sharp beneath furrowed brows as he concentrated on a book. She had seen them laughing and crinkled with happiness, and she had seen them soft and gentle with affection. But she had never seen them as they were now, open and unclouded and full of wholehearted joy. He smiled, causing little creases to appear in the corners of his eyes, and Belle felt her own face break into an answering grin. For she now knew, beyond any doubt, that they were one and the same, the creature and the man, her Beast and her Prince.

He knew the exact moment she recognized him. He could see it written across her face, as clearly as words on a page. Her chocolate brown eyes widened, and it was like a sunrise had broken across her face, so complete and consuming was the expression of wondering excitement that touched her every feature. The touch of her small, warm hand against his bare human skin was like heaven, and he found himself wanting to return the gesture, to feel in addition to being felt. Tentatively, still half afraid she would shy away in disgust, he brought his hand up and cupped her face as gently as he could, his fingers unconsciously mimicking hers as they threaded into her hair.

For a long moment, they stood just like that, eyes locked, breathing deeply, learning the feel of each other as their fingers traced gently over each other’s faces, smooth skin against smooth skin. Then her gaze drifted to his mouth, and she leaned forward. After only a split second’s hesitation, he followed, and their lips met, closing the final distance between them once and for all time.

He had been kissed many times before, but not like this, never like this. Kissing Belle was a revelation, the event it felt as if his entire life had been building toward. Her lips were soft and warm beneath his own; he could still taste the salt of her tears on them. He wanted to kiss her until all that bitter saltiness was gone, and then pause for breath and kiss her again, just because. His other hand, the one that wasn’t cradling her cheek, found its way to her waist as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and he pulled her closer, deepening the kiss just a little. He didn’t want to frighten her by demanding too much too soon. There would be time for that in due course; by some miracle there would, it seemed, be time for everything. This kiss was an exploration, a mapping of one another with their lips, just as they had done with their eyes and fingertips.

But Belle was not content to have their kiss remain quite so gentle. As their lips moved together, she slipped both her hands to his chest, and then brought one lower still, to his waist, and pulled him close. She could feel his muscles tense beneath the thin linen of his shirt as a shiver chased over his skin at the contact, and then his arms were around her, tugging her to him. Everywhere their bodies met, her skin burned pleasurably. She felt as if she were on fire, her entire body awash in an awareness she had not known it was possible to feel. His lips pressed against hers, a little firmer now, a little more insistent, and she opened her mouth to grant him access. He took it. All around them, they could hear creaks and groans as the castle began to knit itself back together.

After a time, they stopped and rested their foreheads together, their breath mingling in hot puffs as they tried to remember how to take in air. Dawn was coming, brilliant golden-pink light coloring the horizon, touching the dead land and making it glow. When she felt able to breathe again, Belle tilted up her face so she was looking directly into his clear blue eyes, and asked the question that had been building in the back of her mind since she had seen the first pulse of magic shoot over him. “How?”

He raised an eyebrow at her, and she felt a little thrill of happiness as she recognized the expression as one he had given her countless times before. “How what?”

She pulled back a little and gave him an exasperated look. “You know very well what.” She gestured up and down the length of his body. “ _This_.”

He chuckled and leaned down to kiss her forehead, the tip of her nose. “My darling, don’t you know?”

She gave a confused shake of her head. “No, of course not. The staff never would tell me how the curse could be broken.” But even as she said the words, she felt a prickling in the back of her mind that told her she _did_ know, or at least know part of it.

“There were two parts to it. One was that someone had to come to love me, beast though I was. That, I am assuming, would be you.” She didn’t dare to make a sound, and he gathered her back into his arms, tucking her against his chest. She felt his next words as a deliciously low rumble against her ear. “The second was that I had to come to love them in return.”

She twisted her neck so that she was looking up at him through her lashes. “You love me?”

“Of course I do. How could I not? That was the easy part. I rather think the more surprising side of this equation is that _you_ love _me_.”

All of a sudden, Belle began to laugh. It felt good to laugh, like a dam giving way to a flooded river in springtime. She laughed and laughed, while he stared at her with a bemused expression on his handsome face. “What’s so funny?” he finally asked her.

She laughed until she felt tears come into her eyes. “I love you,” she told him. And then, because it felt so wonderful to have him here, whole and alive and listening, she said it again. “I love you. I love you so much, and I don’t even know your name!”

He realized with a shock that she was right, and the absurdity of it caused him to laugh too, and then they laughed together. When they grew quiet and serious again, he told her, “I have a whole string of names, actually. But the one my mother always called me by was Adam. She was English, and I think it reminded her of home. Everyone else kind of followed her example.” He paused and smiled wistfully, a faint, far off kind of smile. “No one has called me that in years, though.”

Belle smiled up at him shyly. “May I be the first?”

“I would like it very much if you were.”

She lifted her hand to his cheek again, and he instinctively leaned into her touch. “Adam,” she murmured, and it sounded like the sweetest benediction. “My love.”

He turned his head to press a gentle kiss against the delicate skin of her palm. There was so much he wanted to say. How much he loved her, for starters. How thankful he was for her and what she had done for him. How grateful he was to whatever benevolent deity or part of the universe it was that had sent her to him. How very much he wanted her to stay. But for someone who had once thought himself so eloquent, his thoughts were a jumbled mess inside his head. The only constant was her, only her, always her.

But he was saved from having to sort out his thoughts into something approaching coherent speech, for at that moment, they both became aware that there was some kind of commotion happening outside. Together they rushed to the edge of the terrace and looked out, and Belle could not suppress a stunned gasp when she saw the sight that greeted their eyes. While they had been…otherwise occupied, the castle and its grounds had been transformed. Gone was the castle of moldering dark gray stone, replaced by one of brilliant golden sandstone that gleamed with an almost rosy hue in the brilliant light of an early summer morning. And it was definitely a summer morning that stretched out before them, the best part of summer, warm and bright, but before the dew had been burned off and the full heat of day was in the air. The perfectly manicured gardens were in full flower, their heady perfume filling the air, and on the horizon, the trees of the forest loomed like dark green jewels. Belle turned to look up at her prince, her face full of speechless wonder.

He dropped a kiss to the top of her head and chuckled at her amazement, though he himself looked almost as if he wanted to cry from happiness. “You’re seeing it as it was always meant to be seen, my love.”

“It’s the most beautiful place in the world,” she breathed, and he felt a burst of happiness in his chest that she should love his home as much as he did.

They returned their attention to the clamor in the courtyard below. “It’s the villagers, I think,” Belle said slowly. “But they don’t sound angry anymore. They sound…happy.” And indeed, the air rang with the sound of laughter and joyful shouting.

“What does it mean?” he asked, perplexed.

She thought for a moment, and then her face lit up when she realized the answer. “I think they’ve remembered!” He looked at her expectantly, and she continued. “Think about it. You completely disappeared for years, and no one ever came looking for you. The villagers were so quick to attack this castle, and they never put two and two together that this was where their prince lived. It was like they had never seen it before. How else could that be, unless they were under some kind of curse as well? And the servants! If you’re back, then so are they. Oh Adam, we have to go to them!”

As wonderful as it was to hear his name fall so casually from her lips, he still shook his head. “If they’ve remembered me, as you say, then they’ve no reason to want to see me. I was…not a good man, Belle. Worse even than I was when I met you.”

She gave him the kind of look that he knew by now meant she thought he was speaking nonsense, and took both his hands in hers, giving them a gentle squeeze. “Then we’ll just have to show them you aren’t that man anymore,” she said matter-of-factly, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “Make them see what I see.”

His expression when he looked at her was infinitely tender, full of so much love that it made her heart ache. “What I could ever possibly have done to deserve you, I simply cannot fathom.”

She smiled at him, loving and teasing all at once, and it was a smile he wanted to see for the rest of his life. “Then come with me,” she said, tugging him by the hands, and he let her lead him.

Everywhere they went, there were new wonders to behold. Gone was the ruined stonework, the faded and torn carpeting, the shredded paintings. Now the West Wing sparkled and shone like never before. Hand in hand, they hurried down the long hallway, almost breaking into a run. The high arched windows above their heads sent patterns of light and shadow dappling across them as they passed. He picked her up and twirled her about before pulling her into another kiss, and the walls of the castle echoed with her excited shrieks of laughter. It was a happier noise than had been heard in those halls in a long, long time.

But at the top of the grand staircase, he stopped and grew serious again. As he looked down into her flushed and smiling face, he felt lighter and more free than he ever had before. There were still so many things he wanted to say to her, still so many conversations they needed to have. But for right now, this was enough. This moment of pure, incandescent joy was enough. So he lifted her hands to his lips and kissed them, first one and then the other, and settled on the one sentiment that needed no explanation. “I love you,” he said, and swinging hands, they went out together into the brilliant light of a warm summer dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this concludes our story. This particular story, anyway. Thank you again to all for reading. This is the first writing I've put online in probably close to ten years, and it's nice to know people are enjoying it. I'm not sure what I'll write next. I've got a partially finished outline for a Beauty and the Beast AU that's essentially a Regency romance style marriage of convenience plot, but set in the modern day. I'm pretty excited about that. I also have some ideas for one shots set in the same universe as Winter Turns to Spring, about What Happened Next, aka all the moments the move didn't show us that we wish we could see. So we'll see where inspiration takes me. As long as someone keeps reading, I'll keep trying to write.


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